The cast was a strong point of the programme. Wendy Craig played frustrated housewife Ria Parkinson, Geoffrey Palmer played her phlegmatic husband, Ben, their youngest son, Adam was played by Nicholas Lyndhurst and their older son, Russell was played by Andrew Hall.
The situation is one of the day_to_day life of the Parkinson family in the bitter_sweet style the writer has made her hallmark. The comedy came from both traditional sitcom sources (Ria's cooking, family squabbles) and more unusual places such as Ria's unconsummated love affair with her soul mate, the rich Leonard, played by Bruce Montague.
An American remake was piloted but never commissioned.
Her husband Ben, a dentist and collector of butterflies, is a stable yet essentially dull man; their children Russell and Adam are typical teenagers, with a typical teenage rivalry.
The central theme in Butterflies, indeed, was the temptation of adultery, with Ria being wooed by a wealthy businessman, Leonard, who represented the sort of adventure missing from her life.
Wendy Craig reprised her Butterflies role in The Last Waltz, a specially scripted production featuring characters from four Carla Lane series (Bread, Solo and The Liver Birds were the others) aired by BBC1 on 10 March 1989 as part of Comic Relief.
The Butterflies theme song "Love Is Like A Butterfly" was written and originally recorded by American country and western music artist Dolly Parton.
The version used at the opening of each episode was recorded specially for the series by Clare Torry, with a band conducted by the BBC's well-known TV composer Ronnie Hazlehurst.
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